– Alex Balfour, formerly the founder of CricInfo and founding team member of Guardian Unlimited, has been appointed head of new media for the London 2012 Olympic Organizing Committee. He will be responsible for developing London 2012’s digital “Window on the world”, including an online community to create buzz around the event. Release
— The BBC‘s iPlayer mission has officially begun – the first public value test on the audio and video player has started, which means the governors need to assess the kind of market impact the player will have and if it represents value for money for licence-fee payers. iPlayer (which might also be called MyBBCPlayer) will enable simulcasts, seven-day catch up TV and non-time limited audio downloads, and would (if it passes the public value test) replace all existing players. The idea is create a consistent player for the whole of BBCi, so that probably means changes to the existing News Player and radio player too. Release
— Ads add up top trouble for Five: A difficult advertising market, additional programme spend and increased competition for Freeview’s digital audience all contributed to a 29 percent or $22.8 million drop in profits for UK broadcaster Five. Audience share fell from 6.7 percent in 2005 to 6 percent in the first half of 2006.
Luxembourg-based parent company RTL reported a 19.1 percent rise in revenues for the six months to 30 June, though profits were down from $401 million in 2005 to $380 million for 2006.
“We saw improved advertising conditions in most of our major markets, with the notable exception of the UK,” said Gerhard Zeiler, CEO of RTL. Release
— The UK’s Newspaper Society, which represents the regional press, has set up a working group to come up with a new audience measurement system to include multimedia platforms. As with most initiatives by the Newspaper Society, this will be designed to publicise the benefits of local newspaper advertising as well as acknowledge the growing online advertising share. The society has asked selected circulation and readership experts to devise a way of measuring and reporting combined audiences across print, online, paid-for and free platforms. ABC, the UK’s Audit Bureau of Circulation, has also set up a group to look cross-media businesses. Research by the Newspaper Society found businesses more multi-platform than ever before: 1,300 core regional newspapers with the number of regional press websites increasing from 509 in 2004 to 828 in 2005 – though, not surprisingly, that still suggests there’s a huge number of local papers without a web presence. Release
This article originally appeared in MediaGuardian.
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